The entire globe is a battlefield for Pentagon

Pepe Escobar is the roving correspondent for Asia Times/Hong Kong, an analyst for RT and TomDispatch, and a frequent contributor to websites and radio shows ranging from the US to East Asia. Born in Brazil, he's been a foreign correspondent since 1985, and has lived in London, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, Washington, Bangkok and Hong Kong. Even before 9/11 he specialized in covering the arc from the Middle East to Central and East Asia, with an emphasis on Big Power geopolitics and energy wars.
He is the author of 'Globalistan' (Nimble Books, 2007), 'Red Zone Blues' (Nimble Books, 2007), 'Obama does Globalistan' (Nimble Books, 2009) and a contributing editor for a number of other books, including the upcoming 'Crossroads of Leadership: Globalization and the New American Century in the Obama Presidency' (Routledge). When not on the road, he alternates between Sao Paulo, New York, London, Bangkok and Hong Kong.

US President Barack Obama now pledges to transfer the
responsibility of the shadow 'Drone Wars' from the CIA to
the Pentagon – so the US Congress is able to monitor
it.

Until virtually yesterday the Obama administration did not even
recognize in public the existence of the shadow 'Drone
Wars'.

The Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) at the Pentagon –
which would then be in charge of the 'Drone Wars' - is bound
to remain secret.

And the Pentagon is not exactly yearning to retouch its
definition of a “militant”, a prime candidate to be
'target-assassinated'; “any military-aged male in a
strike zone”. “Muslim” male, it goes without
saying.

Obama’s rhetoric is one thing. His administration’s 'Drone
Wars' are another thing entirely.

The President now insists GWOT is no longer a “boundless
global war”.

That’s rhetoric. For the Pentagon, the “entire globe is a
battlefield”.

That is the operative concept since the beginning of GWOT, and
inbuilt in the Pentagon’s Full Spectrum Dominance doctrine.

And if the entire globe is a battlefield, all its causes and
consequences are interconnected.

The rules of the game

What’s the difference between a British soldier (the UK is
attached to GWOT via the “special relationship”), stationed
at an army barracks, gruesomely hacked to death with a meat cleaver
in a London street and a Syrian soldier
beheaded/disemboweled/cannibalized in “rebel”-held territory
by a mercenary Sunni jihadi?

The difference is that the Nigerian-British killer in London is
a terrorist, and the jihadi in Syria is a freedom fighter.

What’s the difference between an alleged – never conclusively -
proven Chechen-American principally responsible for the Boston
bombing and a little Pashtun girl killed by a US drone in
Waziristan?

The difference is that the Chechen-American is a terrorist, and
the Pashtun girl is not even acknowledged by the Pentagon (and even
if she was, she’d go down as “collateral damage”.)

And what if the “collateral damage” is a US citizen, as
in Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, the 16-year-old son of Muslim cleric
Anwar al-Awlaki, 'target-assassinated' by a US drone in
Yemen in October 2011?

It will take 19 months for the administration to admit he was
“terminated” – but still with no justification
attached.

GWOT’s rules of the game won’t change – no matter how soaring
Obama’s rhetoric.

When the US – or “the West” – kills or
'target-assassinates' Muslim civilians, that’s never
terrorism.

When Muslims supported by “the West” kill other Muslim
civilians – as in Syria – they are not terrorists; they are
Reaganesque “freedom fighters”.

When Muslims kill Western soldiers – as in London – they’re
terrorists.

When Muslims happen to come from regime-changeable Iran and
Syria’s government, not to mention Hezbollah, they are by
definition terrorists.

And when Muslims are lingering in Guantanamo just because they
were in the wrong place at the wrong time when the US invaded a
Muslim country, they remain terrorists – the umpteenth Obama
promise to close Guantanamo notwithstanding.

Pick your favorite blowback

Take a look at the trailer of Dirty Warsfeaturing
Jeremy Scahill’s investigation of Washington’s shadow war. Pay
attention to what a Pashtun peasant says: “If the Americans do
this again, we are ready to shed our blood fighting
them”.

That’s blowback. And not only Pashtuns are ready – but pan-Arabs
and Muslims born and bred in “the West”.
The new “lone wolf” catchphrase/hysteria barely identifies the
future proliferation of Muslim individuals whose anger finally
explodes.

They may not be affiliated with any al-Qaeda-style franchise or
copycat. What they do embody is the notion that if “the West” can
get away with killing Muslim civilians, there will be a price to
pay.

That’s 1, 2, 3, one thousand blowbacks.

And reasons for a thousand blowbacks are piling up.

The Bush administration’s 'Shock and Awe' over Baghdad 10 years
ago was Western terrorism inflicted on Iraq’s civilian
population.

The 'Drone Wars' are Western terrorism inflicted on civilian
populations from Yemen to Pakistan’s tribal areas.
The sanctions packages imposed for years on Iraq and later on Iran
are slow-motion Western terrorism inflicted on civilian populations
to “prepare” them for regime change.

NATO’s war “liberated” Libya and turned it into a failed state.
The result is Sahelistan; northern and western Africa on
fire.

Suicide bombers in Niger have just attacked a military camp and
a uranium mine operated by French company Areva.

Responsibility was claimed by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a former
leader of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) who late last year
formed the splinter group Signatories in Blood, then led the attack
on a natural gas plant in Ain Amenas in Algeria last January, and
later may – or rather may not – have been killed.

The bottom line is that the entire globe will remain a
battlefield – a self-fulfilling Pentagon prophecy.

So many Belmokhtars to fight, so many Syrian jihadis to support,
so many “al-Qaeda” to target-assassinate, so many Muslim lone
wolves to track.

Obama’s rhetoric is just a show. GWOT is bound to remain a
serpent biting its own tail, eagerly feeding itself till the end of
time.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.